Golf Cart parade is a hit with locals, visitors

December 8, 2010

Last weekend, Captiva hosted its first Light the Way Golf Cart Parade as part of the Captiva Holiday Village and Parade Committee member Denice Beggs of Royal Shell Real Estate, said that because the event was such a huge success, it will definitely become an annual island event.

“By the end of the parade, we had something like 50 golf carts participating. We were so excited because it had been slow start with people signing up, but we had a lot of last-minute people join in,” Beggs said.

Beggs said that the Golf Cart Parade wouldn’t have been possible without a hard-working parade committee that helped put everything in place.

“The golf cart committee was awesome and unbelievbable in pulling this off. I want to give them kudos for all they did in making the parade possible. It just shows what a group of people with the same goal in mind can do when they really come together and work hard,” she said.

From sleigh-inspired wonders to towering tinsel trees, the more than decorated 50 golf carts in the parade gave the panel of judges a hard decision to make.

“There was a lot of creativitiy. I was surprised at how creative people got in their decorating. People were saying it made them feel like a kid again. It was just great fun,” Beggs said. “People are already saying they can’t wait until next year.”

The parade judging panel was made up of Craig Wolf of NBC-2; Erick Lindblad of SCCF and Dave and Billie Kay Miller, ’Tween Waters guests from Arkansas.

There were three winners in three categories:

• Business: American Realty

• Guest: Ken Frey

• Resident: “Ladies of the Sea, Sand and Sun”

Each winner received a trophy, but the Business Category trophy contains multiple plaques. Though American Realty will be engraved as the 2010 winner on one of those plaques and will be allowed to display the trophy all year long, next year, the trophy is fair game again.

Half of the proceeds from the application fees for the Golf Cart Parade will be donated to the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation.

There are photographs from the Golf Cart Parade, taken by Denise McKee of L3 Beach Photography, and more Captiva Holiday Village event information online at www.CaptivaHolidayVillage.com.

Article Photos

Jeff McDermott.

George and Kathy Donaldson.

The parade judging panel was made up of Craig Wolf of NBC-2; Erick Lindblad of SCCF and Dave and Billie Kay Miller, ’Tween Waters guests from Arkansas.